Someone decided to blow up her phone, and she chose to snuggle deeper into the comforter. It was too early for this. She needed sleep. Everyone who knew her understood you did not disturb her until after ten a.m.
Ten minutes later, the phone started ringing.
And ringing.
And ringing.
Growling obscenities, she threw back the covers, and sure enough, the room was still dark. Not even a hint of daybreak yet. The alarm clock mocked her with the time of 4:32. Who the hell was calling this early?
Dimitri Kincaid’s smiling face flashed on the screen. Becca’s first instinct was to cut the phone off and toss it across the room. Yes, he paid her to be his PA, but that didn’t warrant him calling at all hours.
She also knew him well enough to know he wasn’t going to stop until she answered the damn thing.
“What?” Becca purposefully made her voice as mean as she could to let him know she was good and proper pissed.
“Took you long enough.”
His voice might be sexy as hell, but she was not in the mood for it right now. Sleep. All she wanted was sleep.
“Do you even know what time it is, D?” Becca yawned through the sentence. Couldn’t help it. She’d barely gone to bed.
“It is about one thirty.”
“Wrong, asshole. It’s one thirty, LA time. It’s four thirty, east coast time.”
“Ah, that’s why you sound like you just woke up.”
Sometimes she had to wonder how bright he was. Eye candy? Hell, yeah. But times like this his IQ was questionable.
“What do you want, Dimitri?” He needed to hurry this up before her brain clicked on and she couldn’t go back to sleep. Once she was up, even if she’d only been asleep for a few minutes, that was it. There would be no going back to sleep.
“We need to talk about this book tour itinerary you sent me.”
“Dimitri, I sent that to you almost a month ago, and you just now want to talk about it? At four-thirty-in-the-fucking-morning?”
“The first event popped up on my calendar as a reminder at midnight.”
“And?” she prompted when he stopped talking.
“And I didn’t know this thing started in two days, Becca.”
Geez. He sounded as pissed as she felt, but he’d known about this for months. It was his freaking bright idea.
“Dimitri. I. Sent. It. To. You. A. Month. Ago.” How much plainer could she be? “You were the one who decided you wanted to get out there, meet the readers, connect with some authors. Not me. You. ‘Becca, get me set up on some book events and author signings this summer. Do it ASAP,’ you said. I did. I scheduled everything, booked your rooms for all the events just like you asked, and sent you all the damn information a month ago! Don’t get all pissed at me because you forgot!”
He was quiet for a moment. God only knew what was going through that head of his.
“I’m sorry.”
Not what she was expecting. Becca pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it, dumbfounded. Did he really apologize? He never apologized.
“Becca? You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Just not sure who I’m really talking to. Did someone steal Dimitri’s phone?”
He laughed, and the sound went straight to her girl parts. The man had a damn fine voice with that sexy Russian accent.
“Funny, Rebecca, funny. I’m serious. I did not know the thing kicks off two days from now. I’m not prepared. I can’t do this. We need to cancel.”
Cancel? He was out of his ever-loving mind if he thought he could cancel on event coordinators two days before an event. She got up and turned on the bedside lamp.
“You cannot cancel, Dimitri. Not this close to Southern Book Bash’s author event. It took me three months to wheedle a spot for you. They are booked solid. Sheila will never offer you another table. It’s a huge event. They’ve sold something like five hundred tickets and some of those tickets are people who are coming specifically to meet you. They’ve advertised you as coming. You can’t back out.”
“I can’t, Becca. I…” He sighed, and she caught a hint of panic behind the words. What was going on with him?
“What is it? Why can’t you go?” She was already scrambling to figure out a way to cancel on Sheila without pissing the woman off.
He didn’t speak for several long moments, and she patiently waited, all her earlier irritation forgotten. It wasn’t often she’d seen him in full-on panic mode.
“I can’t go. That’s all there is to it.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Dimitri Peter Kincaid. Not after all the trouble and begging I did to get you into those venues.”
“I think my mouth is rubbing off on you.” He let out another one of those sexy as hell laughs. “When did you start cussing so much?”
“When my boss started waking me up at four in the morning.”
“I didn’t think.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
“You already said that, and apology accepted, but you’re still not getting out of this signing.”
“Aren’t you my PA?” he asked. “Don’t you have to do what I tell you to?”
“Only when it makes sense and won’t put my ass in the frying pan with people I respect. You’re going, Dimitri, and that’s that.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“You sound like a three-year-old who’s sulking.”
“I’m allowed. I’m an author.”
“I call bullshit.”
“Bullshit this, Rebecca Joyce Rhodes. If you’re going to make me go to this damn thing, then you’re coming with me.”
“Absolutely not.” The words came out in a whoosh of air. He did not just demand she leave the comfort of her apartment to go out, where she had to talk to people. Nope, not going. Not for anything.
“Look, I’ll pay for the plane ticket and your room. Hell, I’ll cover food too. I just need someone…”
“No.” She stopped him before he could get started. “I’m your PA, Dimitri. I do all the book stuff you don’t have time for. I do the Facebook group postings, I do all your promo designs. I handle email, your fan club, setting things up when you’re out partying your ass off. I work, and I work hard. But I do it from the comfort of my own home. I am not going anywhere.”
“Yes, you are going.” His voice took on a stubborn lilt. “If you’re going to make me suffer, then so will you. Either come with me, or you’re fired.”
The phone disconnected, and she pulled it back and stared at it, dumbfounded, once again. He did not just threaten to fire her if she didn’t go with him to this signing, did he? And then hang up on her?
Could she go with him? Her breath caught, and she couldn’t breathe thinking about it. She stumbled to the window and threw it open, trying to get air. Thinking of all the crowds at the airport, sitting next to people she didn’t know on the plane, all the people at the hotel sucked air from her lungs. And then the signing? People who would expect her to talk to them? She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
Black spots started blinking in front of her, and she desperately fought to calm down so she could breathe. Panic struck hard and fast. She couldn’t go.
Even if that meant quitting her job.
She picked up her cell and texted him.
I quit.